Host:
Kristin Hatcher
This week the gang talks about IBM once again building the Fastest Supercomputer Ever, Amazon.com unwraps its Unbox movie service, and Facebook takes a beating over privacy options. Speaking of privacy, we discuss how Diebold Voting Machines can easily be hacked in 4 minutes flat without a trace. Also, feds shut down a major spyware operation and hit them for 2 million bucks. We discuss the possibility of Windows Vista being delayed in Europe as well as how far Vista RC1 has come since Beta 2 and what to expect from it in the future. In News of the Ridiculous, Microsoft attempts to patent conjugating verbs. We can't make this stuff up, folks...

In game news, Sony confirms 500,000 PS3s for the November 17th launch (and even if they do, it won't contain an HDMI cable) and we talk about how they just continue to drop the ball. Also, Neverwinter Nights gets pushed back and Joel discusses the new Sam & Max game coming out in about a month and highly recommends it.

30MB

9/11/2006 5:47:03 PM
EST
This week the gang talks about IBM once again building the Fastest Supercomputer Ever, Amazon.com unwraps its Unbox movie service, and Facebook takes a beating over privacy options. Speaking of privacy, we discuss how Diebold Voting Machines can easily be hacked in 4 minutes flat without a trace. Also, feds shut down a major spyware operation and hit them for 2 million bucks.
We discuss the possibility of Windows Vista being delayed in Europe as well as how far Vista RC1 has come since Beta 2 and what to expect from it in the future. In News of the Ridiculous, Microsoft attempts to patent conjugating verbs. We can't make this stuff up, folks...
Listen Now

12MB

9/11/2006 5:49:22 PM
EST
In game news, Sony confirms 500,000 PS3s for the November 17th launch (and even if they do, it won't contain an HDMI cable) and we talk about how they just continue to drop the ball. Also, Neverwinter Nights gets pushed back and Joel discusses the new Sam & Max game coming out in about a month and highly recommends it.
Listen Now

It still looks like it takes a regular, industry-standard HDMI cable....

9/12/2006 1:49:51 PM

That is her.

9/13/2006 10:59:19 AM

Great show guys, as always

Just when you thought Sony didn't have any balls left to drop they go ahead and find another way to do it *sigh*

About MS patenting conjugating verbs - it sounds like they're talking about a software that does that, probably has something to do with speech recognition, generation, etc. Which I think would be ok except that the wording for the patent is way too vague, they basically cover any way a software would do that, which is of course retarded - it's pretty much patenting an idea or a concept rather than an actual product. Like Brad pointed out several podcasts back, software patents should be on actual implementations, so in this case it should be something like "we're using such and such algorithms/techniques/storage methods/etc. to create verb conjugating software."

Hopefully it doesn't go through, and whoever's doing that patent law/office review should hurry up and update the whole thing to the 21st century.

P.S. I know you guys have been really busy lately, especially Kristin with all the trade shows, but the bi-monthly podcasts are a real bummer. I really wish you could find a way to get back to a weekly podcast, I would even accept shorter podcasts, like 30-40 minutes instead of an hour.

Or better yet, forget editing! Time and time again we (i.e. the audience) pointed out that the banter, whether on topic or off, is the best part of the show. So just drop the editing all together, other than the intro/wrap up music (though I could live w/o that as well), it'll make your job easier and allow you to put up weekly podcasts - it's a win win really.

Yes, you said you'd give me a shout out for finding that Diebold article for you

9/15/2006 12:01:46 PM

9/15/2006 2:27:05 PM

Trust me, he lied...

9/18/2006 11:55:56 PM

Kristin's bee story reminded me a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine some years back about a woman who swallowed a yellow jacket. She took a long swallow from a pop can and felt some pain, but thought she'd swallowed a drinking straw (?? I don't get it, either). When she went to the emergency room, they had to use an endoscope before they realized what the problem was. They even had a photo of it in the stomach. That yellow jacket was lodged in there but good and it seems to have gotten a few revenge jabs in on the way down ("How dare you swallow me!").

Sony's missteps are so frequent, it almost seems as if they've got a monthly quota to fill. Even with the Wii being 250 instead of sub-200, and a release date 2 days after the PS3 launch, I expect it to easily outpace the PS3. Sony's quality control has always been spotty in my experience, which makes me wonder how many of the 500,000 PS3s that do get shipped will have to be returned. At $600, I'm not going to personally find out. I think I'll just sit on the sidelines and watch the carnage.

I'm a bit disappointed about NWN2 being pushed back, but it's not delayed by much. Like Joel, I'm a huge Sam and Max fan, so I'm more interested in its release to tell the truth. Definitely my favorite LucasArts game. Yea verily, I even rank it above Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series.

9/19/2006 12:10:42 AM

Be careful Dance, when you mention Grim Fandango, you must say the words on bended knee. I love Sam n Max, but Grim is probably number 2 on my all-time favorite adventure game list.

9/20/2006 12:12:30 AM

Rest assured, putting anything above a Tim Schafer game is not something I take lightly. Particularly Grim Fandango, which really deserved far better sales figures than it got.

About the verb patent issue, I agree with Whiterabbit that while there's probably some mention of implementation in the patent application, 20 claims seems a bit much. Unfortunately, this situation is also found in the biotech industry. The Ariad pharmaceutical patent lawsuit I've been following has 203 absurdly broad claims in a naked attempt to lay squatter's sovereignty onto a whole biochemical pathway. The recent patent re-examination ripped it to shreds by stripping out 160 claims as being too vague, obvious, or having invalidating prior art. It looks like the patent lawyers got fatigued midway through the re-exam. On page 42, they list a slew of claims and say that they "are rejected under 35 USC 102(b) as being anticipated by the King James Version Bible" citing the cardiac benefits of red wine as prior art. Why do I get the feeling the patent lawyers held their meetings in a bar?